1Introduction

This year's international construction market survey presents data analysed from 43 markets around the world delivering greater insight into the global construction industry.

"Steady global economic growth, increasing demand for construction and a shortage of skills and labour, combine to provide governments, clients and the industry compelling drivers to grasp the moment and commit to investing in productivity improvement." - Steve McGuckin

Our team of economists worked closely with our local experts to analyse an expansive cost dataset to provide insight into how the construction industry is performing. This reveals key global trends as well as more detailed local market dynamics. Read the foreword

2Survey overview - building momentum

Key statistics

Five new markets entered the analysis for the first time this year: Bogota, Buenos Aires, Dar es Salaam, Madrid and Tokyo.
Our analysis identified a number of challenges facing the construction industry as we progress through 2017, including skills shortages, exchange rate pressures and an acute need to improve productivity.

3Construction market - where's hot and where's not

This year’s survey reveals a slowly warming industry suffering from skills shortages as global economic conditions improve. A third of the markets surveyed expect to be warmer by 2018 compared to a quarter of markets in our 2016 survey.

Scroll over location to see market temperature

4Most expensive cities to build in

New York has overtaken Zurich as the most expensive city in which to build, followed by San Francisco and Zurich. London, which ranked third in last year's report, has fallen to fifth place behind Hong Kong, despite costs in the city soaring by 5 per cent over the last year.

5Overstretched labour market

The global construction market remains overstretched with this year’s survey highlighting that there is still a skills shortage problem. Overall, more than half of the markets analysed are suffering from a skills shortage.

7Download full report

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Welcome to the 2017 international construction market survey

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